Childhood Onset Schizophrenia and Early Onset Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders

The clinical severity, impact on development, and poor prognosis of Childhood Onset Schizophrenia (COS) may represent a more homogeneous group. Positive symptoms in children are necessary for the diagnosis and hallucinations are more often multi modal. Both in healthy children, as well as in children with a variety of other psychiatric illnesses, hallucinations are not uncommon [1] and diagnosis should not be based on these alone. COS is an extraordinarily rare illness which is poorly understood but appears continuous with the adult onset disorder. Additionally, as seen in other areas of medicine, early onset populations have more prominent progressive brain changes, and genetic risk factors [2].